By Scott Gilfoid: WBO heavyweight champion Joseph Parker (22-0, 18 KOs) will be looking to take the scalp of his young 22-year-old challenger Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) on May 6 next month, and then possibly Tyson Fury afterwards if he comes sniffing about on the revenge trail. Parker, 25, would like nothing better than to bag both of the Fury’s to add them to his resume of fine pelts. But first things first, Parker needs to whip the 6’6” Hughie in order to get Tyson worked enough to where he’ll want to get up off the couch, lose some weight, and finally get back into the ring to end his long 2-year layoff from boxing.
The whole revenge bit is kind of futile when you think about it. Even if Tyson were to avenge the loss of his cousin Hughie, it’s not going to change anything. Hughie would still have beaten by Parker. Fury won’t be able to change that even if he were to KO Parker.
“I’m fighting Hughie and if I beat him I think Tyson would want to come back and try and get revenge,” said Parker to livefight.com. ”He’d want to also try and regain his old title and I’d welcome that fight. I’ve got huge respect for Tyson Fury as he beat the long-reigning, dominant heavyweight champion and started bringing some excitement back to the division.”
Nah, I don’t see it the same way Parker does. Fury is having enough problems just trying to get the motivation to resume his boxing career. I sure as heck don’t see Fury getting any more motivated at returning to the ring if Hughie gets trounced by Parker. If Hughie’s last dreadful performance against journeyman Fred Kassi couldn’t get the 6’9” Fury back inside the ring, then I sure don’t see him coming back just because he gets smashed to bits by Parker.
I think Fury will come back, but only for a cash out payday fight against IBF champion Anthony Joshua. That would be a no-lose type of fight for Tyson because the money would be so good that it would be worth it for him to take the fight. Tyson Fury vs. Joseph Parker wouldn’t be even close to the same kind of PPV numbers in the UK.
“We don’t know what his tactics will be, but we’ve got our game-plan so we’ll see if he does what he usually does or brings something different on the night,” said Parker about Hughie.
Does Parker seriously not know what Hughie will be doing on May 6th? It’s obvious what Hughie will be doing. All you need to do is look at his last three fights and you’ll know what he’s going to do on the night. Hughie likes to throw jabs and single pot shots. He then falls forward into a bear-hug to keep his opponents from throwing anything back at him.
Hughie will then wait for the referee to separate him and his opponent before the process starts again with another pot shot followed by an embrace. The technique that Hughie uses is the old ‘punch and grab.’ We’ve seen many fighters use it over the years. There was former heavyweight champion John Ruiz, and guys like Bernard Hopkins and even Shane Mosley. It’s hard to defeat the punch and grab technique without the help of a good referee to penalize and disqualify fighters that insist on using it for a full 12 round fight.
Using the punch and grab technique for a round or two isn’t a big deal, but when a fighter employs it for a full 12 round fight, then it’s a situation where they’ve gamed the system and are basically cheating. That’s where the referee comes in. The ref has to do his job by taking charge of the fight and stopping the cheating from the fighter using the punch and grab technique. Unfortunately, I rarely see referees stopping this kind of thing. They tend to just let it go on round after round without doing anything to stop it.
What’s interesting is that referees will stop cheating like constant low blows and rabbit shots, but they frequently don’t stop fighters from holding excessively. As such, if Hughie is going to resort to using the punch and grab style to stymy Parker’s offensive efforts, then he’s going to need to take matters into his own hands on May 6. That could mean a number of things. Parker can take a step back when Hughie comes charging forwar to clinch him. Parker can hit Hughie with uppercuts when he’s attempting to embrace him.
I wouldn’t recommend fouling Hughie, because the referee might end up penalizing Parker if he hits Hughie low or with a rabbit shot. What I saw middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin use when he fought Martin Murray was the crown of his head. Murray was repeatedly clinching Golovkin to keep him from throwing his power punches. So what Golovkin did was lower his head when Murray would come forward to clinch, and he’d end up getting a face full of the top of GGG’s head. It must have hurt, because Murray stopped clinching like crazy after a while.
“From what I’ve seen of him he is a tall and rangy guy and I’ve been able to see his style and what he does well,” said Parker about Hughie. “He’s got height and reach on me so I’ve got to apply pressure and mix up my attacks.”
Hughie is a pot shot guy. That’s what he does. He’ll telegraph a right hand that he’ll throw from a wide angle. He also likes to use his jab. The clinching is a big part of Hughie’s game. That’s why he was cut over his left eye in his last fight against Kassi last year in April. Hughie kept falling forward after throwing his power shots, and it eventually cost him in terms of um suffering a cut. When you fly forward like a Billy Goat all night long, you’re going to bang heads a certain percentage of the time, and a cut is going to be the result from time to time.